


Glass Houses

by SHSLKendokka



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: Gen, Murder, Post Epilogue headcanon, SDR2 Spoilers, What if?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-23
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 10:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1055461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SHSLKendokka/pseuds/SHSLKendokka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The simulation was created to rehabilitate the members of Super High School Lever Despair. All it did was bring them closer to their demons. In the days, months and years following the termination of the island simulation, the fifteen students try their hardest to forget the tortures they went through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for Nanowrimo. However, given my overbearing workload I was not able to finish in a month, and plan to post what I have here on a schedule that fits me better.

     The relative peace of Jabberwock Island was merely a façade.  Behind the bolted windows and locked doors of a certain Hopes Peak Academy, three extraordinary teenagers immersed themselves in a flurry of activity.  Byakuya Togami, Kyouko Kirigiri and Makoto Naegi alternated between filing paperwork pertaining to the fifteen comatose students, yelling at members of the future foundation over the phone and berating Alter Ego, the resident AI.  Togami pounded at the laptop's keyboard with heavy fingers, spewing question after question; _"Why haven't they woken up?  Will you be able to back up any of the corrupted data?  How much longer until they wake up?  What are you doing to fix this mess?"_ It was only Kirigiri's judgmental gaze, combined with the shaky image the AI projected, that finally stopped him.  Grainy text began to appear on the screen, Alter Ego's response to only one of the Heir's questions, _"I'm doing as much as I can, you will have to place your faith in miracles and in your classmates."_  
     Togami didn't speak, nor type anything in reply.  He simply stared at the screen.  The idea of potentially salvaging the pieces of the teenagers' broken minds; it had been a shot in the dark.  In the hours after the three Future Foundation members had awoken from their state inside the alternate reality, it had seemed that they were headed in the right direction.  Now, the threads of fate were unraveling, the prospect of success looming further and further from their collective grasp.  They had already placed their faith in miracles, so what else did they have left?  
     In the 30 hours that followed, the three teenagers wavered on the spectrum between hope and despair.  There were moments when they tore at their hair, and wept.  Fleeting smiles danced across their faces with each accepted form and argument won.  And, of course, there were smiles when Hinata opened his eyes.

     When Hinata awoke, he was lying on a hard surface covered haphazardly with a scratchy starched sheet.  The slat he had been asleep on top of was encased in a cramped glass pod, only so big that Hinata could move about a couple inches to each side, and the top fogged with each of his hot breaths.  All he did for several moments was breathe, the clouded glass obscuring his vision somehow comforting.  It felt familiar in a world where Hinata Hajime had long dark hair, red eyes and a sullen complexion.  In a world where Hinata Hajime was naught but a discarded memory and all there was left behind was Izuru.  Izuru, and faint memories of an island with sixteen students.  
      _Crack_!  Hinata's fist collided with the glass, which spiderwebbed into a mess of cracks.  Small bits of the glass ground into Hinata's knuckles, drawing pricks of blood.  Tears pooled at his eyes, but Hinata let loose another punch, shattering the glass and raining shards down onto him.  It hurt.  It hurt so bad, but the pain was less than that of remembering.  "Hajime-kun!  What the hell?" Naegi screeched, having just arrived at the scene.  
     The younger boy stepped back, watching as Hinata sat up amid the bed of broken glass with a horrifying sound somewhere between a squelch and a crunch; the sound of few of shards of crystal digging their way through Hinata’s skin.  Rivulets of blood formed little dribbling tracks that flowed down Hinata’s arms with tranquility.  Two or three small cuts punctured the boy’s suit and slacks, where the glass had ripped at them and touched at Hinata’s skin underneath.  The boy didn’t seem to mind though.  His red eyes had a glassy look to them that suggested he was not entirely there.  Where he was, in the tireless expanse of memory, Naegi didn’t know.  The one word he whispered, in a voice husky and choked from disuse, dismissed all ideas save for one; “Nanami.”  
     Based on the statistics that Alter Ego had projected, and the backup data that it had tried to scrounge up, no one should have been able to remember the events that transpired on the simulated island.  It was simply impossible, as the forced shutdown they induced was supposed to wipe the memories of those inside the simulation.  However, Alter Ego had said to place their faith in miracles; and this, this definitely qualified as a miracle of the human mind.  
     “Nanami.” Hinata repeated, once again, his face contorting into an unrecognizable mass of rage and inexplicable sadness.  Then, all at once, he was standing up with motions too fluid for one who hadn’t used their legs in over a week.  He ran at Naegi, his bony knuckles clenched and white as he smashed them into the side of Naegi’s cheek, leaving a dark, flushed mark.  “How could you do this to me?!  How could she not be real?  She can’t not be real!” He screamed, stringy trails of saliva flying from his open mouth.  Droplets of Hinata’s blood were flung onto Naegi’s face as he was attacked, and now the younger, horrified boy tried to wipe them away, but only succeeding in smearing the drops all over his face.  “Hinata-kun, please.  Stop this.” Naegi whispered, only half hoping that his senior would hear it.  
     Regardless if Hinata had heard Naegi’s quiet plea or not, he turned away.  Although Naegi could not see the other boy’s face, he saw his shoulders slump and start to quiver.  Hinata moved one hand to his mouth as he let out a horrible gasping, choking sound.  Anyone could tell that he was sobbing.  Naegi didn’t know how the boy felt.  No one could, really; how could anyone say that they watched the girl they loved die, only to find out that she was nothing but lines of binary coding, who never understood their feelings, let alone reciprocated them.  As such, Naegi did nothing to comfort Hinata, as nothing he said would be anything but empty, hollow words traveling through the space where his Nanami should be.  Should be, but won’t ever be.


	2. Chapter 2

     In the days that followed, all of Kirigiri and Naegi’s time was spent rehabilitating Hinata, which left Togami to watch over the still comatose students and make sure that they were relatively healthy and whatnot.  Although the boy had never said so, it was assumed among the three that this was the way that Togami liked it; comatose students couldn’t talk, so there was no one who could disturb his peace.

     Hinata stood complacently underneath the showerhead, his eyes closed as he felt the water beat against his forehead in a steady rhythm.  Then, it would run down his body in small rivulets that made his scars, the ones he had gotten from his incident with the top of the glass pod, tingle, in a way that almost hurt, but not quite.   _Knock-knock-knock!_  A stern rapping at the door made Hinata lose his short lived sense of tranquility.  He sighed inwardly, but still made no move to ask whoever lay on the other side who they were, as well as what they wanted.  They told him regardless.  With a tone of voice that seemed as if it’s owner were trying hard to be gentle, to hold some warmth, they said, “Hinata-kun, it’s me, Kirigiri.  You’ve been in the shower for a while, and I was just hoping that maybe you’d made up your mind to speak to us?”  
     Oh, yeah.  Hinata had almost forgotten his silent vow to keep from speaking from the group that was responsible for his torture.  He had dedicated this pledge to Nanami, who he had yet to see, even in his dreams.  God, Hinata missed her.  He pined for her soft pink hair that curled softly around her face, and her dazed expression that she wore after being suddenly woken from one of her narcolepsy induced naps.  Her pink eyes that somehow knew exactly what was going on, and could read the stories that each one of the fifteen students held in their minds...  
     “I see.” Hinata was brought out of his reverie and into the real world by the now stone cold sound of Kirigiri’s voice.  He heard the _click clicking_ of her heels as she marched away, no doubt angry, or even furious at his lack of a response.  Hinata had to remind himself that she deserved it, that she was as good as a murderer, and that he was never going to give in to them.  Even though... even though never, was a very, very long time.  
     With a grunt, Hinata turned off the water, shivering a bit at the feeling of cool air pressing up against his warm, still damp skin.  He quickly toweled off, rubbing himself dry.  For a split second, he looked into the mirror and saw his sallow, sunken portrait of a face eerily staring back.  He pinched at his cheeks, and even slapped at them a bit, hoping that the ruddy glow of broken capillaries would help him to look more alive than dead.  Without even realizing that he was speaking the words aloud, Hinata hissed, "No." His soft, creaky voice dripping with the kind of venom unique to those who have truly experienced sadness, "It shouldn't matter what I look like.  If I feel dead, I should at least look the part." He raised an arm, the bony hand attached curled into a white-knuckled fist.  He felt like punching the mirror until it cracked, just to feel the way it gave beneath his clenched fists.  Just to feel, for what barely passed as a moment, that he was strong. Then he looked at the scabbed over cuts that laced his arms like grotesque tattoos, and felt them throb in a dull, sedated way.  Hinata may have been strong, but he was still human; he felt pain.  
     At that, Hinata glanced at the neatly folded pile of clothing that had been laid out for him: a white dress shirt, jeans and a green patterned tie.  All of which were reminiscent of his apparel worn inside of the simulation.  The thought of wearing them made the boy want to be sick, he needed more reminders of the island like a hole in the head.  Alas, he had no way of asking for anything else to wear, so with a swallow of determination, he changed into the dark blue, denim pants, and pulled the cream colored dress shirt over his head.  As he fit the tie around his neck, his fingers fumbled, and suddenly Hinata was once more a blubbering mass of tears and heartache.  "God damn it, goddamn it all!" He yelled.  "Why me?  You hear me?!  Why me?  Why!?" He repeated, his voice rising so high on the last word that it cracked loudly with a sound similar to a dry, heaving sob.  
     It wasn't long at all before Kirigiri opened the door of the bathroom, something akin to pity in her eyes  that normally held nothing but stern disapproval.  She was confronted with the sight of Hinata curled into himself, sitting in the fetal position, his long, tangled sheet of black hair all fanned out around him, shielding his face from her view.  Kirigiri sat down next to him, awkwardly patting his shoulder while making soothing cooing noises.  "Shh, Hinata-kun.  Shh..." She repeated the phrase to him over and over again, beginning to work her fingers through pieces of his hair.  Deftly, she slowly smoothed all of the tangles and knots out of the group of strands that she held, and then began the process once more with another clump of hair.  While Kirigiri attended to the mess that was Hinata's hair, the boy did nothing but hiccup and sob. His shoulders heaving and quivering in time with his voice.  Eventually, he quieted down, and the two sat into silence, the only sound being the soft scratching sound of Kirigiri's nails against Hinata's hair and scalp.  
     After what felt like an hour of silence, Kirigiri broke the peace and quiet with what felt like small talk.  However it was much heavier than simply idle chatter, "While you were in the shower, one of your classmates woke up, Hinata-kun.  It was the boy with the  pink hair, Souda-kun, I think his name was." If Kirigiri had expected Hinata to respond, he disappointed her, as her pause was filled with nothing but silence from both parties.  With a little sigh, she continued, "He had a little trouble breathing at first.  He had nearly turned blue before we could get him into an oxygen mask.  The pods are supposed to work so that they would correct any mishaps in vitals... I guess this proves though that they only have an effect on those who are comatose." Kirigiri paused again, this time to focus all of her attention on a large snarl in Hinata's hair.  It took a couple of seconds and a hiss of protest from Hinata, but she was able to tear it free.  "Anyways, he's sleeping right now, but we could arrange for you two to meet up later.  Oh yes, and we've renovated several of the classrooms, so that everybody could have a place to sleep.  Once the three of us are gone... everyone can have their own dorm room"  
     "Where are we?" The words are the first Hinata had said to her, and they took Kirigiri almost off guard.  "Why, Hinata-kun.  We're on Jabberwock Island, inside the replicated Hope's Peak." Yeah, Hinata had decided, never was too long of a time to go without saying anything, even if it was to a murderer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do not expect such quick updates in the future. I have up until chapter three typed out already, and they just need to be edited. Once it comes time for chapter four, there should be updates weekly or every other week.


End file.
